Summary: The concept of a nuclear family is relatively recent – it is first mentioned in The Oxford English Dictionary in 1925 – and refers to a household that consists of a mother, father and their children. It is recent because the cost of establishing a household has been historically very high and young couples simply could not afford to do so. It was the economic ability to live separately that then enabled the significant social change of splitting up the extended family. Essentially big government has replaced the role of the extended family in many societies today. Since big government is no longer affordable, the nuclear family will no longer be affordable either. History Future Now believes that the nuclear family is a historical aberration and ultimately doomed to fail.
